Young Folks' History of Rome eBook

inlaid with marble, and adorned with the statues and
pictures Nero had brought from Greece. On part
of the gardens was begun what was then called the
Flavian Amphitheatre, but is now known as the Colosseum,
from the colossal statue that stood at its door—­a
wonderful place, with a succession of galleries on
stone vaults round the area, on which every rank and
station, from the Emperor and Vestal Virgins down to
the slaves, had their places, whence to see gladiators
and beasts struggle and perish, on sands mixed with
scarlet grains to hide the stain, and perfumed showers
to overcome the scent of blood, and under silken embroidered
awnings to keep off the sun.

Vespasian was an upright man, and though he was stern
and unrelenting, his reign was a great relief after
the capricious tyranny of the last Claudii. He
and his eldest son Titus were plain and simple in their
habits, and tried to put down the horrid riot and excess
that were ruining the Romans, and they were feared
and loved. They had great successes too.
Britain was subdued and settled as far as the northern
hills, and a great rising in Eastern Gaul subdued.
Vespasian was accused of being avaricious, but Nero
had left the treasury in such a state that he could
hardly have governed without being careful. He
died in the year 79, at seventy years old. When
he found himself almost gone, he desired to be lifted
to his feet, saying that an Emperor should die standing.

[Illustration: VESUVIUS PREVIOUS TO THE ERUPTION
OF A.D. 63.]

He left two sons, Titus and Domitian. Titus was
more of a scholar than his father, and was gentle
and kindly in manner, so that he was much beloved.
He used to say, “I have lost a day,” when
one went by without his finding some kind act to do.
He was called the delight of mankind, and his reign
would have been happy but for another great fire in
Rome, which burnt what Nero’s fire had left.
In his time, too, Mount Vesuvius suddenly woke from
its rest, and by a dreadful eruption destroyed the
two cities at its foot, Herculaneum and Pompeii.
The philosopher Plinius, who wrote on geography and
natural history, was stifled by the sulphurous air
while fleeing from the showers of stones and ashes
cast up by the mountain. His nephew, called Pliny
the younger, has left a full account of the disaster,
and the cloud like a pine tree that hung over the
mountain, the noises, the earthquake, and the fall
at last of the ashes and lava. Drusilla, the
wife of Felix, the governor before whom St. Paul pleaded,
also perished. Herculaneum was covered with solid
lava, so that very little could be recovered from it;
but Pompeii, being overwhelmed with dust or ashes,
was only choked, and in modern days has been discovered,
showing perfectly what an old Roman town was like—­amphitheatre,
shops, bake-houses, and all. Some skeletons have
been found: a man with his keys in a cellar full
of treasure, a priest crushed by a statue of Isis,
a family crowded into a vault, a sentry at his post;
and in other cases the ashes perfectly moulded the
impression of the figure they stifled, and on pouring
plaster into them the forms of the victims have been
recovered, especially two women, elder and younger,
just as they fell at the gate, the girl with her head
hidden in her mother’s robe.